In recent years it has become common practice to inject pieces of meat with flavor enhancing solutions and solutions which improve the cooking qualities of meat, which may contain preservatives and which may serve to automatically baste meat upon roasting.
Aqueous solutions of this type can include phosphates, salt and like flavor enhancers, proteins, binders, fats or other meat-treating agents.
In order to insure effective distribution of the solution throughout the piece of meat, the piece of meat can be massaged after or concurrently with application of the solution. For this purpose the piece of meat is agitated in the treating solution generally for a period of time sufficient to enable the liquid to be homogeneously distributed in the piece of meat.
In the past, the machines used for this purpose have generally been tumblers, i.e. can have a drum into which the meat is inserted at an end and which rotate to tumble the pieces of meat in the solution. Control of the operation can be effected by time or by periodically stopping the machine and inspecting the product.
In the commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,630, there is described a process in which the change in viscosity of the meat serves as a basis for controlling the massaging operation in a machine utilizing paddles to agitate the meat in contact with the liquid.
While the latter approach has represented a major advance in controlling the massaging of meat in contact with a solution, the machine itself has nevertheless been found to be capable of improvement.